Page 408 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

LUKE

As soon as I walked in the front door of my house, my cell rang.

“Tell me my people are wrong that you and Aspen Lane met her parents tonight,” Mark said, sounding pissed.

Mark was a friend. Was, because after this shitshow, I hated his guts.

We’d met two years ago when he was a consultant on NYC ER, helping make the law enforcement and legal scenes more realistic.

For my role, there was a medical consultant, too, but the writers still stretched reality.

There was no such thing as a triple craniectomy, and it was impossible to accomplish a regular one with a pen.

We’d had a few beers here and there, but he somehow found out I was spending my break in Hunter Valley.

I didn’t even want to know how he knew. He showed up out of the blue to hang with me.

Not hang, but with a specific purpose. To approach a woman who lived there.

She was tied to a case he was running and hoped to use his famous friend–me–as an in to chat her up.

He asked for my help. Dumbest ‘yes’ I ever said.

It was only supposed to be beer and baseball while he talked to a woman in a bar.

“You told me she was a senator’s daughter who might be caught up in shit,” I reminded.

“She is.”

“Aspen!” I called, my voice echoing through the house. No answer. “You said she was a princess. That like her parents she was shallow, vapid, and fake. Those were your exact words when you showed up in Hunter Valley asking for my help.”

“Yeah.” Why did he sound so mad at me? I was so fucking pissed at him.

“You didn’t tell me she was Senator Bergstrom’s daughter!”

I hadn’t liked the politician the one time I met her, more concerned about appearances than the woman across from us at dinner dying from anaphylaxis.

I assumed her daughter had to have been just as obnoxious.

That I’d eat some wings and watch baseball while Mark got the info he wanted out of the woman, then get back to my regularly scheduled vacation. Right?

Wrong.

So fucking wrong. One look at Aspen in the bar and I’d been instantly drawn in.

Hooked. Possessive. No way was I letting Mark anywhere near her.

So I told him to fuck off and I claimed her as mine.

Over trivia and a night of amazing sex, I knew there was no way she was involved in any shady shit.

My girl wasn’t a princess or egotistical.

Vain. Pretentious. She was nothing like her mother.

The next morning when I’d been hiking with Aspen and the kids, he’d texted wanting an update. I responded back that she wasn’t involved. Then I forgot about the whole fucking thing, completely and totally invested in making Aspen mine.

Until we ran into her parents earlier.

“Yeah, well, Aspen Lane is Senator Bergstrom’s daughter.”

“I know that now,” I snapped. I ran my hand through my hair. “You told me her name. Aspen Lane. That you were investigating her connections to possible political bribes and kickbacks.”

“Right.”

“You didn’t tell me any important shit.” I was walking around my house, hoping Aspen was here, even though I knew she wasn’t. Then where was she?

“That’s because you’re not in the FBI. I couldn’t give you all the details. You’re not part of the case.”

“I had no idea she was related to Senator Bergstrom,” I admitted. “They don’t even have the same name.”

“So you two did meet her parents?”

“Yeah, we met them.” That had been a fucking hot mess.

Aspen’s clothes were still here. She’d taken a little purse with her to the party, so she probably had her wallet and phone. I already texted her at least ten times. Called and left messages. Nothing.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked. “You said she wasn’t involved. This means she–”

“She’s not involved,” I said through gritted teeth. “I told you she wasn’t up to anything shady.”

“Did you outright ask her?”

“What? If she was doing illegal political shit? No! We were a little busy.” He could read between the lines on that answer.

“So how did you know she was innocent?”

“Because I know her!”

“Dude, you had sex after meeting her in a bar. How could you know her?”

I squeezed my phone, wanting to throw it across the room. “What the FUCK is going on?”

“Why are you so fucking angry?”

“Because I met her mother before. I sat next to her at a dinner.”

“At a dinner? That sounds hoity-toity.”

“We sat at a table and food was served,” I replied. “It was a fucking dinner. Because of that, now Aspen thinks I used her for access to her mother.”

“That’s bullshit.”

I stared at the ceiling, frustrated I had to explain all this to him. “I know that. You know that. Not Aspen.”

He sighed. “Her mother is shady, Luke. We have the evidence we need to arrest her. It’ll happen in the next few days.”

I was too angry to think clearly. The senator was being arrested. Great.

But I couldn’t focus on that. I felt tricked by Mark even though he’d been the one who was supposed to talk with Aspen at the bar, not me.

I’d pushed him away. Told him to fuck off. He’d given me the shot to get the info from her he wanted. As soon as he left, I forgot all about him and his stupid line of questioning until he texted me on the hike.

“Aspen has no part in whatever shady shit her mother’s up to.”

“She met her parents!”

“Because she went with me to an industry party, and they were there.”

I felt like Godzilla, ready to rip the city apart.

I needed to tell Aspen the truth because what she was thinking was wrong.

It didn’t matter though. I hurt her. After seeing how her parents treated her, I understood why she’d cut everything off with them.

They weren’t fit to be parents. Who pointed out a ten year old mistake like a condom breaking in a conversation?

Sure, it had led to a pregnancy, but what kind of reunion chit chat was that?

And the fact that neither parent knew how cool Sierra was? Their fucking loss.

They didn’t like Aspen. In fact, they seemed downright disappointed in her. No wonder she had self-esteem issues. No wonder she looked like I crushed her. She trusted me and I fucked her over.

“Planned, you think?”

“What did I just tell you? We were there for me, and Aspen thinks it was planned. So them meeting up being planned? Fuck, no. She wouldn’t even be in California if not for me,” I replied, remembering how she reacted when she saw them.

And how they responded to her, each in a different way.

“It was totally random. If the producer wasn’t there, we’d have stayed in bed.

Trust me, it would have been a lot more fun. ”

“I don’t want to hear about all the sex you’re having. What about the Bergstroms?”

“They’re a piece of work. Worst parents ever. I’m talking total assholes. They don’t even know their granddaughter’s name.”

“They could be acting.”

I huffed. Why couldn’t he leave Aspen the fuck alone? “Not a chance. They pretty much took her off the family tree when she got pregnant by mistake. You can’t fake not knowing your nine-year old grandchild.”

“Duncan Pounder has reached out to Aspen multiple times recently.”

What the hell? “That loser? She dumped his ass two years ago.”

“He’s got an illegal arrangement with her mother that will put them both away for ten years, but I need to know if the daughter’s complicit.”

“Are you serious? Aspen told me he was with her for access to her mother and she dumped his ass. Trust me, she hates the guy. Now she hates me for the exact same reason.”

“Hate or not, they’re talking again.”

I scratched my head. “Who’s talking? Him or her?”

“Phone records say he’s contacted her.”

“Jesus Christ, Mark, it’s not because she’s working with them, it’s because he wants the engagement ring back. Or the financial equivalent.”

He was quiet for a moment. “She still has his ring? Huh. He’s desperate for any cash he can get his hands on.

Anything he gets from Aspen will be dirty money.

He uses it for the scheme he’s got going with Senator Bergstrom, Aspen’s guilty right along with them.

There’ll be a financial trail linking her to it all. ”

I froze. “WHAT?”

“You heard me. If she’s part of this, we’ll know if she pays him.”

“She’s not part of this,” I ground out. How many times did I have to say it?

“Then she can give his ring back.”

I ran a hand over my face, suddenly exhausted. Fuck. She buried the stupid thing.

“She lost it. I gave her the money to pay him off.”

“Excuse me?”

“She lost the ring.” I wasn’t telling him about the bulldog rock.

“She has zero money. You should see her tiny apartment. No way is rich Mommy and Daddy footing her lifestyle. She’s making it on her own just fine, but doesn’t have fifty K to throw at a loser ex.

I asked Aspen to come with me to LA to fix the rehab gossip that was spreading about me.

The film role was at stake. She refused, not wanting anything real. ”

“I bet you hated that.”

“Yeah. I proposed she be my fake girlfriend instead. And I paid her.”

“You’re supposed to be an investigator or something in the new movie, right?”

Why was he asking about the film? “Yeah.”

“Well, you suck. I can’t believe you did all this.”

“How was I to know? You didn’t tell me shit.”

“She must be a fantastic lay.”

A growl rumbled in my chest. “Watch it, asshole.”

“You care about her.”

From my pocket, I pulled the thong I took off her the first night we met. Weird that I carried them around? Hell, yeah. But I didn’t give a shit.

“Of course, I care. One look, Mark. One fucking look was all it took. I told you she wasn’t involved and to leave her the fuck alone.”

“I did until her ex reached out to her. And you should’ve walked away, too. That family’s trouble.”

“Walk away from Aspen? Not possible.”

“Well, I’ll be able to keep your ass clean, but if she gives him that money and he uses it as I imagine, she’s going to jail.”

“She can’t go to jail because of me.”

Holy fuck. She’d done nothing wrong. The FBI had been sniffing around her because of her dick ex and his connection to her mother. I told Mark he was way off with Aspen. Warned him away.

Did it matter? No. Because of some random meeting with her parents because of me put her right back in front of the FBI. And the money I gave her to help her out? That would put her in jail?

“She can,” he told me.

Maybe he was right. If I’d left her alone, she wouldn’t be in the situation she was in. And didn’t even know it. I had to help her.

“FUCK!” I shouted, the sound echoing off the walls of my empty house. I had to be on a plane to India in two days.

What the fuck was I going to do?